Anne McAllister

USA Today best-selling author and two-time RITA winner Anne McAllister has written long and short contemporary romances, a time-travel, a couple of single titles and several novellas. Editors have occasionally wondered (aloud) if she can focus. Anne says she has to follow her characters' story wherever it leads. Turns out her characters go a lot of different places!

Anne was born in Southern California, land of sun and surf and beach volleyball players. She paid attention -- especially to the beach volleyball players. She also paid attention during formative summers on her grandparents' small Colorado ranch and with family in Montana. In fact, at age 5 she imprinted on a tall, dark, taciturn cowboy. She followed him around like a duck. Even now many of her heroes (including the beach volleyball player) owe a lot to him!

Anne has a BA in Spanish (which is useful for reading at least some of her foreign editions) and an MA in systematic theology (which kept her mind alive when she had more preschoolers than she could count -- math never being her strong suit).

She also loves doing family and local history projects. She sees them as yet another way to explore peoples' motivations and to learn what makes them tick. This does not mean she is only interested in people who are either imaginary or dead. It is (almost) all grist for the fictional mill, though she is still trying to find a way to work a 2nd great-grandfather who reputedly shot 40 men into a book.

If you want to know more about Anne or her books (or her 2nd great-grandfather), please drop by her website at www.annemcallister.com.